October 28, 1997 11:48 AM
BUSINESS WIRE
SANDISK INTRODUCES
WORLD'S FIRST 80
MEGABIT FLASH CHIP; CHIP
USES 2ND GENERATION
DOUBLE DENSITY
TECHNOLOGY
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SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 28,
1997--
Key Advance Accomplished Through Separate Joint
Development Programs with Matsushita and NEC
SanDisk Also Announces New, Significantly Higher
Capacity
Flash Storage Products Using the 80 Megabit Flash
Chip
SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK), announced
today that it has completed development of the world's
first Double Density 80 megabit flash chip. The
accomplishment was made possible following two
separate 80 megabit joint development programs that
SanDisk worked on with Matsushita Electronics Corp.
(MEC) and NEC Corp. When SanDisk commences
product shipments, currently planned for mid-1998, the
chip will allow the company to lower flash prices and
significantly increase the capacity of all SanDisk flash
storage products. The capacity of CompactFlash (CF)
memory cards will be more than doubled to 60
megabytes with the 80 megabit chip while the capacity
of other products also will be substantially increased.
This Double Density 80 megabit chip will allow SanDisk
to put 10 megabytes in a single standard TSOP (thin
small outline package) and enable SanDisk to offer a
two-chip, 10 megabyte chipset solution.
The achievement was accomplished by combining the
0.35 micron manufacturing technology of MEC and
NEC with SanDisk's patented Double Density Flash.
Double Density Flash essentially doubles the capacity of
flash storage products by storing two bits of information
in each flash cell. Double Density Flash, sometimes
referred to as multi-state or multi-level flash technology,
was first introduced by both SanDisk and MEC in
November, 1996, when they introduced a 64 megabit
flash chip. SanDisk was the world's first company to
ship multi-state flash storage products and is today the
only company in production of such products.
With the 80 megabit (or 10 megabyte) flash chip, the
top capacity of SanDisk CompactFlash cards increases
from 24 to 60 megabytes, the highest capacity CF cards
on the market. The top capacity of the flash chipset
increases from 8 to 20 megabytes; Type II PC cards
from 150 to 200 megabytes; Type III PC cards from
300 to 500 megabytes; and SanDisk's embedded 1.8"
FlashDrive from 240 to 350 megabytes. These are now
the industry's highest capacity products in their
respective categories.
Internal qualification of products based on the 80Mbit
flash chip is expected to be completed in Q1, 1998,
with customer shipments expected in Q2, 1998.
Demonstration units will be shown at the SanDisk booth
(L-1204, Las Vegas Convention Center) at Fall
COMDEX in Las Vegas, NV, Nov. 17-21.
Eli Harari, CEO and president of SanDisk, said, "We
are very pleased with the excellent cooperation with our
strategic partners, MEC and NEC, which has resulted in
this second generation Double Density Flash technology.
This 80 megabit chip allows SanDisk to meet the 10
megabyte sweet spot of both the CompactFlash market
and the flash chipset market with a simple flash chip and
a simple low-cost controller chip. Our customers will
benefit not only from the lower cost structure of Double
Density Flash, but equally from the extremely high level
of reliability made possible by the intelligent controller
chip."
Yutaka Nakamura, general manager, Memory Division,
MEC, said, "We are pleased that both SanDisk and
MEC have successfully completed the joint development
of the 2nd generation 80 megabit flash chip based on the
current 1st generation 64 megabit multi-state flash chip
which was first introduced by both SanDisk and MEC.
We believe that this smooth development of the 80
megabit flash chip will lead to early production ramp-up
of this product; and furthermore, early development of
the next generation product."
Hideto Goto, general manager, 2nd LSI Memory
Division, NEC Corp., said, "We are proud of the
success of the joint development project with SanDisk,
and look forward to ship the world's largest scale solid
state non-volatile storage device as soon as possible."
Nelson Chan, SanDisk vice president of marketing said,
"We believe that this 80 megabit announcement will
enable SanDisk to maintain or strengthen its leadership
position. It is especially significant to note that with
today's market starting to demand higher capacity
CompactFlash cards, we are able to increase the
capacity of our CompactFlash cards to 60 megabytes.
Consumers and OEMs will benefit from the 80 megabit
technology because we believe it will result in
significantly lower prices and much higher capacity flash
products across our entire product line."
SanDisk also has increased the performance of its
Double Density Flash products. With 80 megabit flash,
sustained write speeds have been increased to over 100
kilobytes a second - while sustained read speeds have
been increased to 1.8 megabyte per second. The 80
megabit chip will operate at 3.3 or 5.0 volts and is 100
percent plug and play compatible with all of SanDisk's
existing flash products.
SanDisk's new 80 megabit chips work with the
company's intelligent controller chip to provide a
complete storage system. Only one 80 megabit chip and
one controller chip are needed to build, for example, a
10 megabyte formatted FlashDisk card.
A 10 megabyte chipset will be priced at $45 in high
volume OEM pricing. This allows SanDisk to achieve a
$4.50 per megabyte price. Other higher capacity
SanDisk products will be priced at approximately the
same price per megabyte.
SanDisk Corporation, the world's largest supplier of
flash data storage products, designs, manufactures and
markets industry-standard, solid-state data, image and
audio storage products using patented, high density flash
memory and controller technology. SanDisk has
strategic alliances with Seagate Technology, Matsushita
Electronics Corp., NEC Corp. and LG Semicon.
Seagate holds a 25 percent equity stake in SanDisk.
SanDisk is based in Sunnyvale, CA.
The matters discussed in this news release contain
forward looking statements that are subject to certain
risks and uncertainties as described under the caption
"Risk Factors" in the Company's annual report or Form
10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1996, and
quarterly report or Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter
ended September 30, 1997, filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. The Company assumes no
obligation to update the information in this release.
SanDisk's web site/home page address:
sandisk.com
CompactFlash and CF are trademarks of SanDisk
Corporation.
CONTACT: SanDisk
Nelson Chan, 408/542-0456
or
Bob Goligoski, 408/542-0463
11:33 EST OCTOBER 28, 1997
BW0162 OCT 28,1997 8:32 PACIFIC 11:32
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